


Out of the mouths of Serpents

by Sapphicsarah



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Unrequited Love, basically Zelda is a softie, mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16730661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphicsarah/pseuds/Sapphicsarah
Summary: Out of the mouths of serpents would come the flood that would end the coven, and the flood would be words of heresy. But she was an awfully beautiful serpent, and Zelda found herself pining as she smoked cigarette after cigarette and looked out into the woods.





	Out of the mouths of Serpents

“And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.” Revelation 12:15

 

Zelda was always a mixture of contradictions, like a cauldron filled to the brim with boiling inconsistencies. She was devout, yet defiant. She was afraid to be alone, yet loathed the company of other people. London was always too loud, too full of other people and of mortals. Mortals were a necessary evil, her father reminded her often. They were a constant presence on the fringe of Zelda’s childhood, never quite demanding of her attention.

She never met any mortal children until her parents took her to their house by the sea. The cottage was made of stone, and the threshold was ancient and vibrated with magic. The thatched roof slanted just so, and the window sills were covered with all manner of plants. The hearth always roared and there was always smoke rising from the chimney. Zelda loved that little cottage on top of the hill, and there she felt more herself than in the city.

The covens were larger back then, and their numbers were spread across England. It was easier and safer to travel, and so travel they did.

Zelda loved the sea at first sight. It was unlike anything she had ever seen in her seven years. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest as the swells came pounding down onto the stone beach. The roar and thunderous sound raged in her belly, and she shouted back as she ran along the shore.

That summer, she watched the tide go in and out, as her parents were busy making connections with the local warlocks in the plains a few miles from the sea. Zelda was free to wander, armed with a hex for any troublesome stranger, and a kind reminder from her mother to return home at sunset.

Zelda was on the beach enchanting the sea foam to make shapes when she met her first mortal.

“Hello."

Zelda snapped up as the sea foam she fashioned in the form of a mermaid broke apart and dropped back into the tide pool.

“Hello,” Zelda sputtered. Her hands were behind her back, ready to cast should it be necessary. But the intrusion was caused by a girl, perhaps her age. Her dress was white and made of linen, and she had the most beautiful hair Zelda had ever seen. It was braided into a long french plait, and dangled off her left shoulder. A blue ribbon rested at the end of the plait, tied neatly in a bow.

“You shouldn’t play in the sea alone,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “My father says you could drown.”

Zelda, affronted at being told what to do, was about to cast a very cruel spell indeed when the girl did a most impossible thing. She smiled, and Zelda was bewitched.

“But I could play with you, and that way should you fall into the sea, I could rescue you.”

Zelda loathed the idea of being rescued by a mere mortal, but it would be nice to play with another little girl. She’d never had a friend before. Not wanting to seem too keen, Zelda turned up her nose before saying in her most imperious voice, “That would be acceptable.”

And so it came about that Zelda Spellman’s first friend was a mortal named Hannah Gardener. Her father was a fisherman and she had seven siblings.

“They’re all so noisy and dirty, not like you Zelda.”

Zelda smiled. She liked to be admired, and Hannah was very admiring. She loved the way Hannah said her name, like it was something foreign and meant to be said carefully. Zelda knew there was magic in a person’s name, mortal or witch.

“I hate my name,” Hannah huffed one morning as they walked along the path above the beach. “It’s so silly.”

“Don’t say that,” Zelda said without thinking. “It’s a lovely name, and a palindrome. It's like poetry.”

“What’s a palindrome?”

“A word that is the same forwards and back.”

“How is that like poetry?”

Zelda shrugged. “It just is.”

Their walks became almost a daily occurrence, and with the mortal school out for the summer holiday, and Zelda being left to her own devices, she and her friend were free to explore the entire Cornish village. They ran up the hills and down to the sea, up to the forest at the edge of Zelda’s garden, and into the valleys tucked beyond the little houses of the village. They met at moonlight and whispered vows of everlasting friendship, called eachother sister, and gave each other a lock of their hair.

When autumn came Zelda thought she may die, so painful was their parting. They had met one last time by the sea, as the tide was going out. They clung together, and Zelda hid her face in Hannah’s hair. “Promise you won’t forget me,” she sobbed.

Hannah shook her head vehemently, fighting back tears of her own. “Never. Not in a thousand years.”

“Swear it?”

“I swear it.”

...

Zelda made the journey back to Cornwall every summer until her Dark Baptism. The smog of London always seemed to cling to her until she saw Hannah. After, the smoke dissipated, and the air was clear. Hannah grew more lovely every year, and Zelda tried not to be jealous of her beauty.

They wrote letters during the winter months, short little excerpts of their lives. As Zelda grew older she knew it was foolish to continue a friendship with a mortal, for their worlds were separate, and if Hannah knew what she was there was no telling how she would react. But she was her oldest friend, and every time she promised a letter would be her last, Hannah would write and say something wonderful.

Her words were simple and heavenly, boiled down to the very elements of living. Cornwall felt like a million miles away, but every time Zelda read Hannah’s words, she felt as if she could smell salt in the air, and hear the sounds of waves in the distance.  

She hated herself for it, but when the time came, all she could think about as she wrote her name in The Book of the Beast was the way Hannah’s name slanted along her memory. Writing letters to Hannah was like a habit she couldn’t break, and returning to the village every year again and again made her feel like the tides, sliding away, only to come roaring back.

Things between them changed after her Dark Baptism. Zelda was a full witch, and the air around her crackled with power. She moved differently, and she felt completely devoted to her Dark Lord. But she wanted to see Hannah one more time.

The wedding announcement took her by surprise. Zelda had not heard about this man in any of Hannah’s letters, but they were to be married and Hannah was ever so anxious that Zelda be in attendance. An ache, like a dull pain settled in Zelda’s chest and did not leave until she saw Hannah all in white. Zelda stepped tentatively over the threshold of the church, and closed her eyes in case the tales were true and she really did burst into flames. Her foot touched the wooden floor, and no inferno engulfed her. She sighed, and entered.

Christian weddings were bizarre, and Zelda did not entirely understand the proceedings, but she knew that Hannah looked beautiful, and she knew that she loved Hannah with all her heart. She would be damned for it, Zelda was certain.

Hannah found her after the ceremony, sitting in a corner of the church garden.

“You came!”

“Of course,” Zelda said graciously. “I would not have missed it.”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Hannah murmured softly. She had flowers in her hair, and her plait had come slightly undone in the excitement of the day. Zelda reached out and tucked a stray lock behind her ear. Her fingers lingered, and for a moment they were shrouded from the throng. The veil of the wedding gown hid them from the world as Zelda caressed Hannah’s cheek.

“I still have that lock of your hair,” Zelda confessed softly.

“And I yours,” Hannah smiled. Her cheeks were rosy and she was the very picture of an English Rose.

The dull ache in her chest throbbed as Zelda leaned over to gently kiss the bride. A soft kiss between friends. Zelda trembled.

“Congratulations,” she whispered, and tried not to cry.

Hannah smiled, and looked at her quizzically, as she had so often done in their childhood when Zelda did something a little too eccentric.  

“Nothing will change,” Hannah promised. “I’ll still be here when you visit in the summer.” She smiled reassuringly. “I’ll just have a husband now.”

“Nothing will change,” Zelda echoed back, as she watched Hannah go to attend to the other guests. She was shining, and moving further and further away.

“But everything already has,” Zelda whispered to no one but herself.

…

Zelda decided that the best way to dedicate herself to the Path of Night was to become a midwife. She buried herself in her work, studying with a witch in Romania. It was as far from Cornwall as she could get, but Hannah’s letters still found her. Zelda read them, tore them up, and burned the pieces. That part of her life was over.

She delivered her first baby when she was twenty. The husband’s familiar had come pounding on her door, and Zelda had raced through the night as the beast led her through the darkness. The labour was long, and Zelda had banished the husband into the sitting room as she sat with the witch. The sun was just rising as the baby slipped into this world, pink and glowing and perfect.

There was powerful magic in being the first face another face saw. Zelda was their guide into this world as she urged little lungs to breathe. She smiled as they cried, and looked into a pair of eyes as they opened for the first time. Every time she held a newborn, she felt her powers grow, until her body positively hummed with it.

She moved to Russia for a time, traveled to China, sailed around the world and ended up in France. She learned languages, went to parties and soirees, had many lovers and met important people. Her life was colourful and bright and she felt nearer to Satan than she ever had. She wore the latest fashions, took part in orgies, led rituals in the oldest forests, drank thousand-year-old wine, and bathed in blood. Her heart was dark and bitter, and yet every few years she sent a letter to Hannah. A short dash of few words, and then a forwarding address. Hannah would send droves of letters to the address until Zelda moved, leaving ashes of the letters in her wake.

She only returned to Cornwall once, when they were both thirty five. Hannah looked a little withered, having had four children and one more on the way. The confinement was difficult, and Hannah had sent for her.

_Please come to me, I fear I may not live to see this baby._

And like a fool, Zelda came, beckoned by a mortal. She stayed in her parent's old cottage at the edge of the forest, and walked down those same old paths to Hannah’s home by the sea. Her husband, like her father was a fisherman, and Hannah watched him row out to sea every day, hoping he would return. Her brood of children were constantly underfoot, giggling and running, and irritating Zelda to no end. She may be a midwife, but she had no real experience with children.

She whispered a calming spell, slipped a harmless sleeping draught into their afternoon tea, and sat with Hannah on the beach like it was when they were small. Hannah teetered along the stone, and took in the sea air. “Good for the constitution,” Zelda muttered, although it may have just been an excuse to get Hannah to herself. She always was a selfish creature.

At the seaside, like all places steeped in memory, time stood still for a little while. Time to a witch was different than for a mortal. It stretched out, twisted and turned and moved slowly, like sand slipping through outstretched fingers. Time for a mortal was like rain, steady and insistent.

The baby came quick, the fisherman returned home, and Zelda once again felt out of place. She slipped away from the sea a few days after Hannah’s child was born. On the journey back to France, she wondered why she tortured herself so.

…

The years flew by, and Hannah never journeyed more than a few miles beyond her village. She never even made it to London. Her letters were all the same. She talked about looking out at the same sea she’d been looking at for the past sixty years, and still being fascinated by the way the wind played with the salty spray. Or the way the sunset turned the water a blazing red.

Zelda had been to the ends of the earth, and had lost track of where she’d been, and the people she had met. All of her experiences seemed diluted, when compared to a moonlit evening in Cornwall.

Hannah’s life only existed in a small corner of the world, but it was her whole world. She was content to stay in the little village where she lived until she died. There was something in that contentment that Zelda envied. Hannah’s little life was enough for her. Zelda was still searching.

As the years went by, Zelda did not age. Her face remained relatively the same, and she was almost eighty before she got her first wrinkle. The letters had become fewer and fewer as the years went by, and Zelda tried to convince herself that she did not care, that it did not matter. And then one morning she woke with a start. The ache was a pressing pain, sharp and demanding. She had expected it, but not so soon.

She took the road from London to Cornwall, and completed her final pilgrimage to the sea. She had a story in her head, that she was Zelda Spellman’s daughter, “Yes the resemblance was remarkable”, and “No, my mother could not come.” She practiced the words over and over, until she reached the village. It was larger now, sprawling and spilling over into the valley. The houses dotted the shore, and Zelda weaved her way through the streets until she reached the last house on the lane.

She knocked on the old door and waited. A young man answered, handsome and tall. He had Hannah’s eyes.

“I’m Zelda Spellman’s daughter,” she explained curtly. “I’m here to visit with Hannah Gardener.”

The man’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Of course, come through.”

Zelda walked through the threshold and down the familiar corridor.

“She will be glad to see you, she used to read your mother’s letters to us. They always sounded so magical. For awhile I thought they were fairy tales.”

“All true,” Zelda said politely. Her heart was racing. _Hannah_ , after all these years.

The room was stuffy, and the tea on the bedside table was cold. Zelda quietly went over and opened the window to let the fresh air in.

Zelda couldn’t bear it. Hannah was so small, and her hair had changed to a brilliant white. Her hands were resting in her lap, and her eyes were still shut from her afternoon nap.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” the young man said quietly, as if sensing he was not needed. Zelda nodded but did not turn to see him go. She heard the door click shut and went to sit in the wooden chair by the bed.

Hannah’s eyes opened after a moment, and turned to look at Zelda. Her eyes, in that old and unfamiliar face, were unchanged. Hannah smiled.

“You came?” she whispered hoarsely. Her voice was thick with illness, and Zelda’s heart clenched at the sound. She would not live to see another sunrise.

“Yes,” Zelda started uncertainty. She took a breath. “I am Zelda’s daughter,” she started. “And she sent me to say-”

Hannah shook her head slightly, and her smile grew. “You never were a very good liar,” Hannah interrupted kindly. Zelda’s breath caught in her throat and her mouth hung open.

Hannah reached out to shut it with a finger. “I am glad to see you again.”

Zelda nodded, and leaned into Hannah’s hand. She couldn’t speak for a moment, overwhelmed.

“I did wonder,” Hannah whispered softly as she traced every detail of Zelda’s unnaturally youthful face. She caressed her forehead and cheeks, ran her fingers through Zelda’s hair, and hummed when Zelda’s eyes slipped shut. Hannah’s hands were rough with age, but Zelda kissed her palm, held it tightly to her lips and felt tears slip down her cheeks.

“Will you stay until the end?” Hannah rasped. Zelda nodded.

Later, at the witching hour, when all the world was lit by moonlight, Hannah whispered into the night, “Promise you won’t forget me.”

Zelda shook her head and pulled her close. “Never. Not in a thousand years.”

“Swear it?”

“I swear it.”

...

Grief comes in waves, and Zelda would go years without thinking of Hannah Gardener, and then all of the sudden she was drowning. She’d read somewhere, or perhaps it was whispered to her in bed once, that love was like drowning. All one had to do was step into the water, and take both feet off the shore. But Zelda always had at least one foot on dry land, so as to remain grounded.

When Hilda was born Zelda promised to teach her to be above dealings with mortals. She helped her mother through the labor, and watched Hilda take her first breath. Hilda was an annoying little thing, always joyful and full of something happy to say. They were entirely different, and Zelda loved her anyway.

But England was too much, so she traveled to America and her accent took on a transatlantic tang. Hilda joined her a few decades later, and then Ambrose. Their accents were still thick, and Zelda found she had missed the way they spoke in the old country. They started a mortuary and Zelda appreciated the poetry there was in that too. She was there at the beginning of life, and there at the end. Sometimes she would help a mortal in a time of crisis, when a doctor wasn’t on hand. And then, in a blink of an eye, the baby she had held as it screamed its way into this world was old and grown, lying dead in her basement. Time kept slipping through her fingers.

As time passed she found herself slipping more and more into solitude. It was hard to maintain appearances in the modern world. Fashions changed so often, and Zelda would settle on a look and it would already be out of style. She’d given up after the forties, and had settled on the hollywood look, the classic Audrey Hepburn, whom she’d met of course. And with the dawn of ubiquitous cameras and photography, and along with the advent of the internet it became nearly impossible to move about the mortal world and go unseen.

Their population dwindled, and the number of magical babies born each year decreased. Covens became smaller and smaller, and it became more difficult to travel outside of one’s own circle. Zelda retreated into her home, and dedicated her life to supporting Edward when he became High Priest. And then he met a mortal and got to keep her.

Zelda had spent centuries carrying around a secret that Edward flaunted. It drove Zelda mad. She whipped herself and accepted the sting, reveled in the painful pleasure of loathing her own self. She resented the way men easily made excuses for their own transgressions, or simply threw out the rule book all together.

However, his happiness did not last long, and Zelda held little Sabrina in her arms and tried not to be frightened by how small she was. Hilda tutted about and whisked the baby away and Zelda was fine with that. She prayed to the Dark Lord to show her the way to raise Sabrina without influences of her mortal heritage.

Apparently Satan didn’t see fit to answer that prayer, and Sabrina was a willful child, who broke tradition and led to an incredible amount of headaches for her Aunts. It didn’t really matter, Zelda thought. It would all end on her sixteenth birthday, and then they could move on from this strange little time in their lives. But when Sabrina refused to sign the book, it caused them all sorts of trouble.

Sabrina. Wonderful, beautiful, _frustrating_ Sabrina, with all of her big ideas of right and wrong. She ate a malum malus, performed an exorcism, and took part in necromancy. It was all too much, and Zelda began to despair. Where had she gone wrong?

Their life was so ridiculous at the moment that Zelda almost didn’t notice the insidious presence of Mary Wardwell. The school teacher slithered her way into Sabrina’s life, and claimed to have been sent there by Edward. She sauntered her way around their house as if she knew the hallways and doors like her own. And when she came to tea, unannounced of course, she knew where to find the kettle.

It made Zelda uneasy, to have a stranger become so familiar so quickly.

So she made her way over to Mary Wardwell’s house after the exorcism. The naked trees that lined the road were outstretched, and appeared to be like hands reaching out to snare. Perhaps she had grown reckless in her middle age, but charging up to the spinster’s house made her feel wild. Her hair was tangled by the November wind, and her mind was reeling from all the energy of the evening’s spells. She pounded on the door and waited.

Mary opened the door looking as she always did, ready to kill. Perfect lips and a plunging neckline to boot, Zelda swallowed at the sight.

“Ah, Miss Spellman. How can I help you?”

“You can tell me who you really are, and what you want with my niece,” Zelda demanded.

Mary’s eyes hardened, and a cold breeze swept between them. For the first time in a long time Zelda was afraid. The dark eyes were strange, almost glowing, and Zelda could not look away. She felt a chill run down her spine and was about to run when Mary seemed to shake whatever the breeze had brought.

She stood a little taller, and pushed back her perfectly coiffed hair. She smiled and murmured,  “I guess you better come in.”

Zelda stepped across the threshold.

…

Being in love was something every witch dreamed about, but when one lived for centuries, everlasting love took on a different flavor. Zelda had never been in love before, but she guessed it felt like smooth stones in one’s fist, like a summer sun on bare shoulders, like the first cigarette after a glorious evening worshipping the Devil.

She wasn’t in love with Mary Wardwell, of course. Whatever they were doing, almost every night, was not love. Zelda’s back was red with the tracks created by Mary’s nails, and her bruises had to be magicked away every morning as she leaned over the sink to look at her neck. It wasn’t anything that Zelda could not stop whenever she wished. And yet, every time she saw Mary she felt an insistent pull, like the moon tugging at the waters.

They talked afterwards sometimes, and Mary said the strangest things. How the Path of Night was full of contradictions, traditions that upheld the patriarchy, when witches were often hailed for taking a path devoid of men.

“Women should be in charge of everything,” Mary sighed into Zelda’s hair. “Don’t you think?”

Zelda smiled, and pushed her back down onto the mattress in lieu of answering such a ridiculous question. _Of course women should be in charge of everything_.

Out of the mouths of serpents would come the flood that would end the coven, and the flood would be words of heresy. But she was an awfully beautiful serpent, and Zelda found herself pining as she smoked cigarette after cigarette and looked out into the woods. A religion that preaches freedom, and yet they bow down to a man. And the sacrifice at every Feast of Feasts is female. Strange.

Zelda’s doubt went up with the smoke, and she shook her head and tried to shake the fog that had settled in her brain. She whispered a protection spell around the house, brewed a stew to cleanse the body of unwanted spirits, and tried not to listen so earnestly whenever Sabrina began another speech.

Coming to the edge of the forest nearly every evening made Zelda hungry. Hungry for something, anything. Mary allowed herself to be devoured up, and Zelda took everything she gave. There was no one to miss her while she was away, since her bedroom now only held one twin bed. The empty space where Hilda’s bed had stood mocked her, and Zelda wondered when she had become so afraid of being alone.

Lust was perhaps a different kind of drowning. Zelda felt a little adrift, and carried Mary’s tender cruelty with her everywhere. For the first time in many years, she thought about Cornwall, and realized with a start that she could not remember the sound of Hannah’s voice. She kept coming back to Mary, and watched the raven fly to meet her halfway down the lane.

It wouldn't last, this arrangement. Eventually someone would find out. But for now, it was their little world, all wrapped up in Mary’s cottage by the forest. Zelda entered as if the house was her own, placed her coat on the back of the armchair by the hearth, and wandered to the kitchen to brew some tea.

It was nearly the witching hour when Mary came home and took her to bed. Zelda did not ask where she had been, but could smell the sulfur in her hair, and saw the dirt under her fingernails. Mary was vicious in her love making, relentless and thorough, and Zelda whimpered as Mary took her again and again. She clung to Mary’s hair, wound her fingers in the thick locks, and pulled Mary down to kiss her soundly. When the kiss was over, she whispered back the words of rebellion, and took both feet off the shore.

For the first time, Zelda Spellman allowed herself to drown, and embraced the little death as the waters, and Mary, swallowed her whole.

 


End file.
